


High School Never Ends

by Holyaqua



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:54:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24137695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Holyaqua/pseuds/Holyaqua
Summary: Crystal transfers school and falls head over heels for preppy, rich, and stuck up head girl Gigi. Can their blossoming romance conquer the adversity and tribulations of being a teenager?
Relationships: Gigi Goode/Crystal Methyd
Comments: 2
Kudos: 69





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> You’ll have to excuse the lack of events in this chapter, i had no idea what to write, but i have so much more planned! I really plan to have a lot of fun with the story, but this is just a little something to start it off! Thank you to everyone who gave me the support to start!

Crystal’s old was school was so much more relaxed. It kept her smart without her having to do very much at all. All though this was nice at the time, her mother was not happy in Pennsylvania. It had become a depressing place full of agony and worry for both of them, and a sufficient amount of family members lived in California to move there together. Now she was there, it had become the most anxiety inducing event of her life. Everything seemed to exude worry. The lockers, the windows, the giant stairwell that kept to the far left of the school hall. It was all yelling at her to run and never look back. She stood there, schedule and books in hand, feeling the awful cut of regret tearing through her body. This day wasn’t for her, she should just get a job at her mother’s bakery. It was with a sudden urge she swung her body around to run, and smacked straight into another woman, running to her class. Her books tumbled straight from her hands and all over the floor. Crystal did not know it at the time, but she had just met the best friend she would ever encounter, and the woman who would always be her better half.   
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Crystal dropped to her knees to grapple at the books. “To think this would happen on my first day.”  
“Your first day?” The girl spoke gently. “Are you Crystal by any chance?”  
“I am.”  
“Hi, Crystal.” She smiled, retrieving one the books from the other girl’s hand. “I’m Jan! I’ll be your buddy for the day, I was just coming to look for you!”   
“My buddy?”  
“Yeah, the school appointed me to show you around!” They stood up in sync. “I’ll be your first port of call for anything work, study, or friend related!”  
She was so unbelievably and unapologetically preppy, it disgusted Crystal more than it should have. She wanted to go home, and this was not helping her cause one bit.  
“Let me see what you have first period.”   
Crystal handed over her paper schedule which Jan readily accepted. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and began reading before loudly exclaiming “Biology!” so just about the whole school could hear her. It was immediately acknowledged by Crystal that Jan was most likely the most intelligent person she would ever meet, despite knowing nearly nothing about her.  
“We share a biology class!” Jan exclaimed, immediately linking her arm with the taller girl.   
“Oh, joy.”  
“You’re going to have so much fun meeting the girls.” They began the walk. Jan’s grip seemed to be getting ever tighter the father away they got from the exit. It was the terrifying ordeal of academia that was gripping her, walking away from her quaint little life in the peaceful underground scene of Pennsylvania.   
“You’re very brave, you know?”   
“For what?” Crystal questioned.   
“Moving schools in senior year.”   
“Yeah.” Crystal asked. “ If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have done it.”   
The brunette knew it was risky and had relented this upon her mother many times before the decision had even been made. She had begged and pleaded until there was absolutely no more grovelling to be done. If Crystal has known on that first day what she was to know for the remainder of her life, she would not have made such a dramatic affair about going in the first place. In her senior year, everyone had already made their friends, and were set to graduate within the coming months. She didn’t imagine at the time her life would follow within the same path. 

There were three other girls at the table where Jan managed to place Crystal. One was a slightly larger girl, her face densely packed with makeup, and the other was tiny, reserved more on the natural side. In her hometown, two girls of such differing personalities would never have been able to get along, let alone conjugate a close-knit friend group. Both of them combined with Jan was explicitly odd to her.   
“Ladies.” She sat down at the table. “This is Crystal, she’s know.”  
“I’m Rock!” the larger girl reached out her hand immediately.   
“I’m sorry.” Crystal asked, shaking her hand. “Did I hear that right? Did you say Rock.”   
“Yep.” She smiled, suddenly mimicking Jan’s cheery and amicable aura. Perhaps Crystal understood why they resonated with each other after all. “Rock just like the rocks on the ground.”  
Crystal sat down in her seat, and sighed to herself.  
“As if today couldn’t get any more bizarre.”  
“Jaida.” The much taller girl reached out her hand to be shaken by Crystal. She was very beautiful, and withheld a certain valour about her that almost scared Crystal. It put her in her place to say the very least.   
“You’re very beautiful.” Were the first words to leave her open mouth.   
“I know.”   
“So, where did you move from.” Rock leant across the table to be closer.  
“Pennsylvania.”   
“Wow, what’s it like there?”  
“Boring.” Crystal chuckled. “I think more has happened to me in the past twenty minutes than in the past eighteen years of living there.”  
“Well, you don’t look boring.” Jaida butted in, not bothering to make eye contact but rather keeping herself focussed on the lesson at hand.  
“She’s right! Look at your hair!” Jan smiled. “I’ve never met anyone with a mullet before.”  
“It’s for convenience.” She laughed. “But, also to piss off my dad.”  
“Pissing off dads is my strong point.” Jaida joked, keeping her face so stern that Crystal had no idea whether or not she should laugh.  
“I know someone who’s strong point it most definitely is not.” Jan suddenly spun around to the door of the classroom, where a beautiful, bleach blonde, supermodel of a woman stood in the doorway, leaning on the ledge. 

“Miss. Goode.” The professor started.  
“Sorry I’m late.” The girl began. “The traffic was absolutely insane on the way here, I won’t even dignify you with the gory details of my morning.”   
“Yes.” He spoke. “The coffee in your hand is so significant of the struggle you must have endured.”   
She ignored him, simply plunging her way into the room, and clipping her loud shoes to the other end, where a circle of girls seemed to adjust their posture at the very sight of her.   
“Who is that?” Crystal leaned over into Jan’s space.  
“That’s Gigi Goode.” She whispered back. “Her father owns the TV company just down the road, she’s the richest person you’ve ever met, guaranteed.”  
She wasn’t just rich, Crystal had thought, she was the most beautiful person she had ever had the pleasure of being acquainted with. She was almost doll-like. Her skin was pale and silky, and her face was perfectly presented, every single pore filled with colour and grace. Crystal would go home when they day was through and write poetry about every inch of her body she could see, and every inch that was visible after that. She had never truly believed what many poets had written about true love, yet, here it was. Glistening and obnoxious in a biology classroom. The bright truth, one big yes. As ostentatious as it was of an eighteen year old, Crystal was in love from the moment she laid eyes on Gigi Goode.   
“Yes, Miss. Goode, just take your seat. Don’t disrupt the rest of the class who actually care about their education.” The professor had spoken, rolling his eyes above his tiny rim glasses. It had enraged Crystal even then, one second after they had first met. How dare he speak to such beauty and elegance with such belittlement in his voice. If Gigi was Crystal’s, she would not want for a single thing in her life.   
“You’re gawking.” Jan whispered, breaking Crystal from her elegant grasp on the beautiful girl. “Try to pick your jaw up off the floor before anyone else sees.”   
“Just look at her and her little posse” Jaida sneered. The look of envy in her eyes was almost tangible. She didn’t want to be them as much as she desired to be feared. There were three girls who seemed to be enthralled by Gigi’s very existence, who all craved at a chance for her attention. Their faces masked hers, and the feigned confidence with which the experienced the class was mirrored equally between the girls. It was animalistic, and strange. There was a whole world of girls that Crystal had not even become privy to.

Crystal thought about her all day. It was the typical way puppy love manifested itself. She sat next to Jan al, just dreaming how Gigi might look beneath her, or what her body looked like naked. Never once before had the brunette burdened such a crush, yet managed to carry it with, on her bnack. She concealed it, hiding her embarrassment that she too was just a child fumbling over infatuation. Whenever she thought of the girl, her stomach dropped to her toes and her whole body tingled. What was this strange feeling? How had it become so very present all of a sudden? Oh, it had not even been twenty four hours.  
“Hey, Crystal!” Jan yelled, jumping from her friends car to the girl just leaving the school grounds.   
“Hey, what are you doing?  
“Taking your ass home.” Rock laughed from the back of the vehicle. “Jaida drives us home every day, it’s like having your own personal cab.”   
“Don’t push it or you can walk.” Jaida rolled her window down. She had on some tiny sunglasses that seemed to provide no protection at all, but that made Crystal shiver. She was just so cool. How they could even be associated with each other was insane to the young girl.   
“What are you waiting for?”   
Crystal took Jan’s out-stretched hand as she was pulled into the vehicle.   
“So, your first day.” The girl breathed. “How did it go?”  
“Uhm, well.” Crystal adjusted her seatbelt. “It was it was.”  
“We all saw you eyeing up those girls.”  
“you did?”  
“God, who didn’t?” Jaida adjusted her mirror.   
“I have to warn you.” Rock lunged her arm around Crystal. “Those girls are animals. Jan knows, they tore Jan to pieces for weeks.”  
“Oh, they did not.”  
“What did they do to you, Jan?” Crystal found her voice. She wondered what wonder had befallen the other girl, for she would stop at nothing to be torn apart by Gigi.   
“They didn’t do anything to me.” Jan chuckled. “I just used to like one of the girls, I was young, we were all freshman.”  
“Who?”   
“Jackie Cox.”  
“Which one was that?”  
“She was the one sat right next to Gigi. They’re very close.”  
“Do you love her?” Crystal pushed. The entire car went quiet for moments at a time, and there was an incredible worry that she had pushed too far.   
“I did once.” She sighed.  
“You know, Jackie’s Persian!” Rock leapt in to cut the tension. 

Crystal told the girls where to drive, thinking of nothing but her new friends and how little she knew thus far. Jan’s greatest love tragedy was the only thing she had really learnt, leaving her to wonder if it was the only thing that really mattered. It seemed so menial now that she had been worried about her first day. If she had not been there and present that day, then Gigi would never had appeared into her life. She was infatuated, and they hadn’t even talked yet. If they had had a conversation, Crystal knew she would be doting on it for weeks on end. It was all so textbook; she had a crush. It was one of those pivotal crushes that seem to last for longer than a lifetime and can never truly be extinguished. She was eighteen and learning the perils of unrequited romance. That evening, Crystal went home and told her parents nothing of her day, deciding instead to reside in her room to be with her thoughts. She was thinking of Jan, Rock, and Jaida, and how she wondered if she would know them forever from this point forward. She wrote, as well. Small poems on her science homework, speeches on old sketches. Crystal had always thought of her life as a book, and this was the part where the main characters comes to the end of their hardships and was about the receive what they truly deserved. It was a new lease on life, one that was not present in Pennsylvania from chance meetings in classrooms. She had always been told that school would be the best time of her life, and for once in her entire existence, she began to believe that might just be true.


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took so long to get out, but here she is! I slipped into writing a little bit of Jan x Jackie because i’m a slut for that too. Enjoy!

A week into her time at her new school, and her phone rang loud in the middle of the night. It was shrill, and she immediately leapt to conceal it among her sheets for fear it make wake up her parents. She checked her clock, it was 2am, and then her phone, and then her clock again. It was Jan, and she wondered what epiphany she could have had in the middle of the night that lead to this phone call.   
“Jan.” She croaked. “What do you want?”  
“Look out your window!”  
Crystal sat up, and traipsed to her knees, snapping the latch off her little windowsill and opening it up. There Jan stood, in a tiny pink dress and her blonde hair all the way down to her waist. Crystal knew she was beautiful from the minute she saw her, but not this beautiful. Never this beautiful.  
“Come outside!” She yelled.  
“Be quiet!” The girl in the house hushed, practically hurling her upper body out the window. “My parents are sleeping, and if they know you’re here, they’ll kill me.”  
Jan just stood there, waiting with a smirk on her face.  
“What are you doing here? Why are you all dressed up?”  
“Jackie’s having a party at her house.” She whispered, just loud enough for Crystal to hear. The quaint groans of Jan’s voice echoed through the air and reminded Crystal that there was a chance there to be missed. It reminded her of her old life where she had no time for friends, and no room to be eighteen.   
“You’ll go, won’t you?”   
“Where are the girls?” Crystal asked.   
Jan raised her hand to motion towards the car that was hidden just behind the giant oak tree in front of Crystal’s house. Rock had her head leaning out the window to watch what was happening. She too, was caked in makeup and a big poufy dress. It made Crystal chuckle.   
“Get dressed. You’ve got five minutes.” 

Crystal had never been one for makeup. Mascara was really all she knew how to do. There was one part of her that wanted to look the way Jan did, but another part that knew the tumultuous amount of effort that it took to be so beautiful. She settled for some jeans and a jacket, as well as her bed hair in a tight ponytail. One look at herself in the mirror seemed to terrify her beyond her means. It was a well-known fact that teenage girls are produced to hate themselves, and Crystal was no exception whatsoever. She didn’t look like the girls in the magazines, or on television. She was pretty tall, and had big, curly hair that seemed to abstractly have a mind of its own. She stared at herself until her whole perception of her body was warped, and she truly had no idea how she looked. She had never been vain, or conceited, but staring at herself right now she couldn’t look away. She was going to be in full sight of her whole school for the first time, and it would happen as she was right now.   
She sighed and knocked over a small pile of her writing with the inner side of her foot, before continuing towards the window. Jan still stood; her arms wrapped around her body from the early September cold. Crystal reached for her jacket that hung above the bed, and chucked it down to the grassy floor beneath, before grabbing onto the windowpane and swinging outside to grapple onto the very same oak tree that hid the car. She had not done anything like this since she was very little, and for one minute, she was young again. The worries of modern life, and of changing schools had not yet dawned upon her. She was hanging from a small piece of bark close to the ground and was free. Jan watched silently as the taller girl lost her footing and stumbled to the floor, catching her face slightly on a twig.   
She ran to her on the ground, concealing a laugh.  
“Oh, shit. Are you okay?”  
“Yeah, I think so.” She stood up, rustling a hand through her hair. “I hope my parents didn’t hear me.”  
“Come here.” Jan took Crystal’s face in her hands, wiping down her cut with her thumb. “You have blood on your face.”   
The faint sounds of loud laughing was traced all the way back to the car, where Jaida and Rock were having one of those rare moments of bonding over something that was universally funny. Crystal couldn’t help but join in, it was the first time she hadn’t taken herself seriously since she was young.  
“Hello, gorgeous.” The smaller girl smiled, as Jan helped her into the back of the vehicle. “How was your fall?”  
“Very painful.”  
“Looks it.”   
“You don’t look so glamorous. You know we’re going to a party, right?” Jaida turned around from the wheel to look at Crystal in the back. “Gigi’s going to be there.”  
“She is?”  
“It’s her best friends birthday party, of course she is.”  
“Oh, give her a break.” Jan smiled, reaching out to fix the pattern of Crystal’s hair that had been touched by the grass. “I’ll do your makeup for you, Crys. You don’t even have to be nervous about it, she’s not really a presence at parties.”  
Jan began touching her face gently, driving the brush back and forwards across her eyelids and going light to adjust to the bumps of the roads. She almost couldn’t breathe thinking of seeing Gigi how she had seen her friends that night. Seeing her in class had been nearly too much but seeing her dolled up put a lump in her throat she couldn’t seem to swallow. It was as if the air had become denser and unbreathable at all. Jan grabbing her face and pulling her everywhere, clambering all over her body to avoid slipping up her work wasn’t helping either. Each second was getting more unbearable, and yet as the music got louder and the singing voices of her friends drew in, it became pleasant at the same time. The windows were open, and the night sky was cold blue with a touch of yellow, letting everyone know the morning was on the near horizon.   
“I have never been to party this late.” Crystal spoke.  
She said no more, full of the gentle recognition that things were like this for the first time and were to never be the same again. 

Jackie’s house was grand and beautiful, erect on a tall hill at the peak of the waling grounds and joined by a winding path that lead all the way down to where the car was parked. The air seemed to be alive with the vivid electricity of the music, and the lights. It lit a small hue around the girl’s house, at which the four ladies in the car stared at for minutes at time.   
“My first high school party.” Crystal uttered.   
“You didn’t go to one in your old school?” Jaida shut her door firmly, pressing her keys to listen to the expensive noise.   
“We didn’t have any.”  
“No, you didn’t have any.” She spoke. “You didn’t get invited to anyone else’s.”  
“Oh, Jaida. You can be so mean.” Rock linked her arm as they began to walk up the hill.  
“Ignore her.” Jan laughed. “She really is a big softie on the inside, her reign is just cruel.”  
They began the slow descent up the hill at the top of which, Jackie stood quaint and overlooking her kingdom beneath. Crystal watched her onlooking the girls as they climbed towards her. Once they had touched ground at the top, there was absolutely no turning back from the embarrassing peril of being young and drunk. Jan always saw Jackie as she was. Beautiful, with this unique sense of fashion that held her above everyone else Jan had ever met. She was stood there that evening, tall and stern, talking down on Gigi who sat just below her on the doorstep of the house. Jan watched her spin around, her little dress following in her the wind and showing off her legs. She reached a long arm out to touch the smaller girl on the shoulder gently.  
“Jan!” She smiled wide. “You look lovely, I’m so happy you could make it.”   
“You look….” Her voice was stuck in her throat. “Perfect! You look perfect Jackie, happy birthday.”   
“and who are you?” The brunette turned her gaze to the woman in the middle of the crowd of girls to meet Crystal’s eyes.   
“oh, this is Crystal.”  
“Crystal.” Jackie repeated, snaking out her open hand seductively. Crystal complied, feeling a stern grip take over her arm. “And from what neck of the woods do you come from?”  
Crystal didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. There was a beautiful girl stood no more than ten centimetres away from her face and she could barely move for catching her eye wherever she went.   
“Oh, come on.” A voice said from behind. Jackie moved to allow the girls full view of Gigi, sprawled out erotically on the doorstep, sipping from a little blue straw. “Jackie doesn’t bite. Much.”  
“I just moved here from…from Pennsylvania state a week or so back.” Crystal managed to cough up.  
“Pennsylvania, hey?” Gigi got to her feet and approached the shorter girl. “Lucky for you, I love fresh meat, and you’re just about as fresh as it comes, aren’t you?”  
Crystal gulped hard. It felt like Gigi had her by the very skin of her neck and would not free her until she begged for mercy.   
“You’re scaring her.” Another voice came from the shadows of the home. It was the two other girls Gigi had been seen with.  
“I don’t believe you’ve met.” Jackie smiled. “This is Nickie, and Dahlia.”  
The two girls waved from the entry way, before leaving to sin back into the unknown.  
“Leave it now, let them enjoy the night.” Jaida stepped through. The girls surrounding her chuckled but seemed to have enough respect just to let her pass. Crystal stumbled into the house like an injured doe, thinking of the subtle eroticism with which Gigi handled their interaction, and how she would think about for it days on end. This would come to be a drastic understatement.

The party was filled with warm bodies that left the group sweating from the minute they stepped through the door. Everywhere Crystal looked acts of violence and sex appalled her. She had never drank before, nor had she touched drugs. It seemed ironic that her reserved attitude had placed her at the disposition of copious amounts of both these things. Jaida had left the group within minutes, and sulked upstairs within the grasp of some boy who only Jan knew well. Crystal watched them escape, never breaking eye contact with Jaida. Jan stood behind her, breathing down her neck.  
“Now that I see you under this light.” She spoke, spinning the brunette around. “I understand what a good job I did. I truly am a very talented individual.”  
“Who’s that man Jaida’s with?”  
“That’s her boyfriend.”  
There was no more spoken on it as the two girls, along with Rock, were dragged off into the crowd of people in Jackie’s living room. Crystal couldn’t help but remember the look in Jaida’s eyes as she was taken away from the group. It was one of the supreme senses of knowing, as if she was privy to the fate that would touch Crystal that evening. Through the crowds of people towards the centre, a small group of kids sat on the floor, playing spin the bottle. Crystal was handed a drink she couldn’t identify in a red cup she had never seen.   
“Come play with us, Gi.” A handful of the group shouted. A young man moved out the way to see Gigi sat, legs spread apart in an armchair. Crystal wondered how she had got from the door to hear without them meeting, perhaps she was a witch or something.   
“I won’t play unless Jackie plays.” She took a cigarette from her pocket. Their eyes met across the crowd again. It was 3am and the sun was coming up over the hill. Crystal looked away, not being able to stand the tension.   
“I won’t play unless….” Jackie scoured the room. “Unless Jan plays.”   
Jan was looking over at her, stood silently in her little dress and leaning gently on her lampstand with a couple of fingers.   
“Well, I won’t- “  
“You all should just play!” He yelled back.   
Jan placed herself next to Jackie in the circle, who teased her gently by kissing her bare shoulder once. Crystal wouldn’t have known at the time but this one incident drove Jan mad beyond her wildest dreams. Gigi sat across from Crystal, leaning back on her hands and exposing her collarbones in the mid living room light. Her whole face deepened, and her body small as she held place there. She looked so dangerous, and Crystal’s eyes could not be moved. There was a passion present too deep for hell to have. It was only when the time came to spin, her eyes removed from Gigi and locked with the spinning bottle. It seemed her whole life depended on it, and it would be only chance to know what it was like to kiss Gigi. She could not contain such an idea, knowing how right it would feel. It almost became too much for her. The noise of the glass hitting the wood terrified her with each interval, until it landed quaintly on Jan.   
“I can’t kiss you, Crystal.” She laughed. “You’re like my sister.”   
“I’ll kiss you.” Rock laughed loudly.  
“I’ll kiss you.” Gigi was already crawling across the floor. Crystal opened her legs with instinct as Gigi crawled towards her. She remembered her perfume so pleasantly, Crystal thought it would ruin her completely to feel it flow through her again. Flow, it did. It seemed to cleanse her from the inside out. The taller girl leaned over her sat counterpart, kneeling up and taking her face in her hands. Jan and Rock watched with anticipation, knowing how she had achieved more in seven days than either of them had in months. Crystal, without thinking, leant upwards and had their lips meet. It was the strangest collision of right and wrong that would result only in heartbreak. Crystal was kissing Gigi Goode, and she was living through it to tell the tale. How thrilling it was, and yet how expectant also. It was everything she ever thought it would be. Every poem she ever wrote about kissing was coming to life before her very eyes. Her lips were so soft, and she tasted like roses. Her cheap lip gloss was rubbing all over Crystal’s face. She did not care. Her hands were pressed on Gigi’s thin waist and they were melting into each other, she did not have another care in the world. When it was all over, the little kiss that came as a second wave meant so much more to Crystal than anything else in the world.  
“You’re a very good kisser.” Gigi smiled, wiping a small amount of glass from the edges of her mouth. “I’m sorry if I ruined your makeup, Crystal, was it?”  
“Yeah, Crystal.” She spoke, beyond breathless.   
“I’ll see you in school, Crystal.”   
These were her last words before she stood up and left. Crystal gulped down what was left of her drink and lay back on the carpet, running her hands through her hair in bewilderment. She was in a room with at least thirty people staring at her, and managed not to care. She was so happy and so alive with the passions of desire. She could’ve died right there. 

The girls left the house in the early hours of the morning. The sun was up, and Gigi had fallen asleep in Jackie’s bed. After finding her to say goodbye, Crystal simply sat and watched. The way her chest was moving, and eyelids fluttering gently in her sleep was nothing short of mesmerizing. To think, they had kissed not only two hours in the past, and now she was able to sleep. Crystal could not grasp the concept, wondering if she would ever be able to sleep again without feeling the ghostly touch of Gigi on her skin. She would never be the same, and it dawned on her then that Gigi didn’t really care. It would most likely never cross her mind again.  
“Hey, you ready?” Jan’s head popped in the doorway. “It’s a little creepy watching them sleep.”   
“I can’t help it.” She chuckled, standing from the armchair in the corner of the room. “She’s just…”  
“The love of your life?”  
“No.” Crystal passed Jan as they made their way down the grand staircase together and into the garden. “Beautiful. She’s beautiful.” 

All the way home, Crystal lay back and wrote scribblings on a piece of paper she had found on the floor of the car. She was thinking Gigi, Gigi, Gigi.


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took so long to get out because I'm balancing like 56 isolation hobbies that I won't see through to the end lol. I'm also reading the bell jar if you're concerned about the sad undertones, Enjoy!

xBy the time Crystal was nineteen, she had tried every drug under the sun. Her little obsession had stopped by the time she reached the middle of junior year, and when she had excess, she sold it to people who kept her in good grades. Even she couldn’t sell, people asked her for advice. It seemed to follow her wherever she went. It was something of an incident but wasn’t the ‘incident’ that seemed to define her life. Her parents never even caught her. It was a piece of her existence that seemed to disappear into the fabric of time forever and would never be seen by another human being for as long as she lived. Her friends saw her as she was through this period. When she was taking in ridiculous amounts of money and she was still just a kid. She imagined her mother knew on some level. When all her drawers locked and she had cabinets everywhere, as well as a surplus of goods, how could she have not known? Perhaps they both knew that the power of deceit was never too far gone. It was partly the reason they left Pennsylvania. Crystal had begun hating her life. There was this pivotal moment that she handed money over to her mother to help them leave and flushed her supply before heading outside. The sunset was beautiful that evening and shone like an orange beacon over the horizon. It seemed to be that everything in the world was telling her it would be okay and was prompting the future forward like some gigantic loving embrace. 

When she came to California, the first thing her mother did was buy her a car. A little blue pick-up truck that she adored with every fibre of her being, and which she was sat in the front seat of; Jackie seated peacefully next to her with her legs up on the dash. Her nimble hands played with the decorations and made Crystal giggle in the comforting remedy of home.  
“And what’s this?” She spoke, pulling another knick-knack from the top.   
“That.” Crystal started, stopping to make a turn in the road. “Is a miniature version of the state of Pennsylvania.”   
“The home stretch.” She laughed.  
“The very same.”  
Crystal watched out of the corner of her eye as Jackie pulled a cigarette from her purse, and attempted to light it, leaning her slightly out the window to distract the first breath of smoke.  
“Hey, would you give me that?!” She swerved slightly into the road to reach for Jackie, who only inched father out the window.  
“it’s just a cigarette!”  
“I don’t care!” She reached again. “My mother will kill me if she finds out I let you smoke in this car!”  
“It’s only one!”  
“Jackie! I don’t care, pass me it!”  
“Ugh, fine!” Jackie passed over her cigarette to Crystal, who didn’t hesitate to take a long hard drag, and throw her head back onto the headrest in euphoria. “You’re such a hypocrite.”  
Crystal laughed through the grip of her vice. “Sorry, sweetheart.”  
“Y’know.” Jackie started. “When you drop me off at Gigi’s, please don’t make a big deal over the fact that she hasn’t been in school for a while.”  
“I can’t even say I missed her?”  
“No.” She angered. “Her dad’s real ill, and she’s pretty bummed out.”  
“What’s up with him?”  
“No one can say for sure.” Jackie rolled up her window seeing the house approaching on the right. “Just don’t go getting mixed up in it all, will you? I know you love her and all but-“  
“I do not love her!”  
“Oh, don’t kid me Crys, I’ve seen the way you look at her.”  
“And how do I look at her?”  
“You look at her like you’re hearing every good thing that has ever been said to you all at once.”  
“So, she’s pretty!” Crystal laughed. “I can look at her if I want.”  
‘Give over.” The other girl almost sneered. “She’s far too much of a woman for you. She’ll absolutely rip you apart.”

Crystal pulled up on the curb outside the house, which seemed so minimal in comparison to Jackie’s. It was brick made and stood beside a small oak sapling. All the windows had white frames, and the door was a wonderful royal blue that Crystal couldn’t take her eyes off even as she exited the vehicle and deposited the cigarette in the grass.  
“Hello, beautiful!” Jackie yelled jokingly at the stunning lady who came to the window. It made Crystal’s heart sing, the way the silk curtains brushed her tan shoulders. It was like she was experienced every single ounce of beauty the world could give. Gigi bit her nail in anxiety, and Crystal felt like crying inside.   
“Should I throw down my hair?” She chuckled. “And it looks like you’ve brought little miss Pennsylvania along with you. How are you?”  
“I’m doing good, Gigi.” She replied. “We all miss you.”  
“Oh, I know, what isn’t to miss?”  
Crystal stepped ever closer to the window, only to reveal a small white railing balcony that harboured many hanging rose plants. She looked so ethereal. Crystal had never felt so proud to have had them meet.   
“How’s your dad?” Jackie mentioned aloud.  
“He’s alright, I suppose. I’m taking it one day at a time.”  
A silence fell deep over the garden. Gigi had been gone for so long, to be by her side again was such a change from Crystal’s routine. She came to just under the marble balcony. The room was far enough down that if she stood upon the small tree bark of the stump, she could touch the floor with the tips of her fingers.   
“Is that car yours?”  
“Yes.”   
“It’s cute.” Gigi chuckled, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s no mustang, but I suppose it gets you from A to B.”  
“You should come for a drive sometime.”  
Gigi looked down upon the girl beneath her. Crystal was so beautiful, and the way the sun lit her face in the evening glow welled up a hole in Gigi’s chest. She thought about them in the car together. Crystal would drive, and when Gigi was tired, she would sleep safe in the front seat. They would go everywhere together, and she would be so happy it would almost kill her.   
“No.” She denied herself. “I don’t think I will.”  
“Suit yourself.” Crystal laughed. There was something in the spirit of the evening that let her know this conversation wasn’t over.  
“Jackie, I’ll let you in.”  
The girl turned from Gigi to Crystal, sighing and knowing that her best friend was truly denying herself something special.   
“I’m sorry.” She mouthed.  
Crystal placed her hands insides her pockets and shrugged a smile onto her face.  
“Thank you for driving me here, cutie.” Jackie approached the brunette and touched her shoulder gently. “I hope you’ll get what you want eventually, just be careful.”  
“You have my word” Crystal chuckled.  
Gigi watched patiently from the door as the girl she wanted most climbed into the car and drove away. There was something in her that needed her to stay. She wanted to be held, and to be appreciated, yet she was letting her pull from the drive and home to where they couldn’t be together. Gigi had not stopped thinking about the kiss they shared. Nothing had ever felt so right and so intrinsically rebellious at the same time. The thought of kissing her again was so absolutely thrilling that it seemed to be the only thing that got her out of bed in the morning. 

“She’s a great girl, you know?” Jackie added from the open door. “You’d do well to have her in your life.”   
“She is in my life.” Gigi turned around, signalling the girl to follow her up the stairs at the back of the house which curled around into her room.  
“No, she isn’t!” Jackie shut the door behind her softly as to not disturb Gigi’s parents. “You act like you hate her.”  
“I do hate her. She’s annoying, and pretentious, and she’s really not that good of a kisser.”  
“If by hate, you mean totally in love with her, then yes you’re correct.” The shorter girl laughed, watching Gigi haul herself onto the bed.   
“Shut up.”  
“Admit it.” She turned to the mirror, looking at herself in utter vanity. “You like her.”  
“You’re ridiculous.” Gigi playfully tossed a book across the room, only for it to land with sprawled pages at Jackie’s feet. “Even if I did, it wouldn’t work. My social status is too high for someone like that to be around me all day every day.”  
“I don’t know.” Jackie chuckled, perching herself on the end of Gigi’s bed and causing the girl to scoot back towards the wall. “I’ve been seen with her a lot since you’ve been moping here, and I’ve been okay with everyone. I might even say I’ve been doing better, maybe because I’m hanging around with someone nice for a change.”   
“You’ve been hanging out with her? Has she been saying anything about me?”   
Jackie laughed gently, stopping only at the sight of Gigi’s mother entering her own bedroom across the corridor. She stood there, surrounded by muted blue curtains, and stared aimlessly out of the window.   
“She’s been kinda quiet for days.” The blonde added gently. “But haven’t we all.”

Without knowing what to say, Jackie turned back to the mirror and fixed her hair.  
“You know if you ever need me, I’ll- “  
“I know, Jack.”  
“Well, alright.”   
Gigi had always been defensive about her life. It was so vastly different from the life she had when she was in school. In school, she was popular, she was smart, and everyone loved her. At home, there seemed to be a sustained amount of tragedy that she had to conquer. Her father’s illness combined with her mother’s close-to-God beliefs made it hard to live day by day. Occasionally, she would take out her father’s old bike and ride aimlessly around the neighbourhood, looking for somewhere to belong. The sun would set, and she would sit atop a cliff and watch it sink into the clouds. These moments are the only truly important ones she could recall. Whenever she thought back these days, she thought about kissing Crystal.   
“She has asked about you.”  
“She has?”  
“Yes. The whole school has been asking about you. They’re practically begging you to come back, it’s like their entire world is falling apart.”  
“And her? She doesn’t think I hate her?”  
“Of course, she thinks you hate her!” Jackie spun from the mirror in a quick release so see Gigi reading. She knew a lot of people who would’ve taken the popularity and let it make them stupid and internally ugly, but this was not Gigi. It never had been. “You talk to her like she’s dirt, she wouldn’t be stupid to think you didn’t like her at all.”  
“I don’t like her at all.”  
“If by that you mean you’re hopelessly in love with her, then sure.”  
Gigi had nothing to say, knowing that whatever she said would make no difference to the absolute truth of the situation. She had never been one to be impacted by the weird and upsetting fractionality of romance. She had never even applied herself to such endeavours before. Jackie mocked her constantly for being a virgin, but at the tender age of eighteen, Gigi did not feel the need to do something she would simply spend the rest of her adult life regretting. She was just a child.   
“You really should think about seeing someone before prom, if you’re not going to bunk down with the newbie, that is.”  
“Who’s taking you to prom?” Gigi asked.   
“Christopher is.”   
Christopher had been Jackie’s boyfriend for going on two months. He was tall, and very built, and put the fear of god within Gigi every time he towered over her. He was the type of man that anyone would be suspicious of without reason. Gigi never liked him, but as Jackie’s good friend, she very much felt under his protection.  
“What if I don’t want a boyfriend?” The blonde girl stood up and walked back to her balcony. The air was cool and warm at the same time, as if it was twenty seconds away from raining. “You know? What if I don’t want to go with anyone? Why do I have to feel that pressure?”  
“Because you’re going to be prom queen, aren’t you?” Jackie joined her and rested peacefully on the railings. “If you don’t have a date, I think the social impact would be absolutely astronomical.”  
“I’m sick of thinking about other people.” She spoke. “What if I have things I want?”  
‘Pretty girls don’t want things.” Jackie spoke very solemnly, looking out towards California. “They just do things for the benefit of the crowd and people love them. Isn’t that enough for you?”   
“God, it used to be.” 

On Jackie’s retreat from the home, she dropped off Gigi’s lab folder on her bed and ran to Chris’ car to spend another night in his parent’s basement. Gigi watched them go in shitty Kia that barely ran and did not dare to move her eyes until they had headed down the path and out into the wide world. She cried then. Perhaps for minutes, perhaps for hours. There was no way of measuring the eternal sadness that welled inside her like a giant boulder blockading the sea. She lay there in bed, knowing her parents were downstairs simply rotting away and one day she would be alone as she felt. In her moment of repentance, she turned the pages of her lab book to see who she would be paired with for the remainder of the year. There, in cursive writing with a heart above the eye stood the name that always fell upon her in times like these.   
‘Crystal’

A single moment of bliss.


End file.
